The annual Munich Security Report, this year entitled ‘To The Brink – And Back?’, said the erosion of arms control agreements, deployment of additional weapons and tensions over military exercises have increased the risk of an inadvertent armed clash.

The report warned: “In this dire state of affairs, miscalculations and misunderstandings could well lead to an inadvertent military clash.”

The conflict in Ukraine also posed a huge stumbling block to de-escalation of tensions between Russia and the West, the report said, noting that a US decision to provide lethal arms to Ukraine would probably cement the current stalemate.

It said countries in eastern Europe were struggling in “an environment of contested security,” caught between the European Union and NATO on one side and Russia on the other, at a time when the EU’s Eastern Partnership policy had “lost its steam” and there was little chance of NATO taking in more members in the near future.